White Mountains Recreation Area

Located just an hour's drive from Fairbanks, Alaska, the one-million-acre White Mountains National Recreation Area offers stunning scenery, peaceful solitude, and outstanding opportunities for year-round recreation. Summer visitors to the White Mountains pan for gold, fish, hike and camp under Alaska's 'midnight sun.' The Nome Creek Road provides access to two campgrounds, trails, a gold-panning area and a departure point for float trips on Beaver Creek National Wild River. In winter, visitors travel by ski, snowshoe, dog team and snowmobile to enjoy the 12 public-use cabins and 250 miles of groomed trails that make the White Mountains one of Interior Alaska's premier winter destinations. The White Mountains National Recreation Area (WMNRA) encompasses one million acres about 30 miles north of Fairbanks, between the Elliott and Steese Highways. It was established in 1980 with the passing of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA). The WMNRA is managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to provide for multiple-use of Public Lands. It is the largest National Recreation Area in the United States, the only one in the nation managed by BLM, and the only National Recreation Area in Alaska.